Grief and Loss

They are gone. And the world continues as though nothing has changed. People carry on with ordinary life while you stand in the middle of it wondering how everything can appear normal when nothing is.

Grief is among the loneliest experiences a person can endure. The Bible does not attempt to rush you through it.

John 11:35 is the shortest verse in the Bible and one of the most profound. Jesus stood at the tomb of his friend Lazarus and wept. He knew what was about to happen — he was moments away from raising Lazarus from the dead. And he still wept.

That tells us something essential about how God views grief. It is not a failure of faith. It is not something to power through or apologize for. It is a legitimate, sacred response to loss — one that even the Son of God experienced fully.

Psalm 23 does not promise avoidance. It says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." The path goes through the darkness, not around it.

But the promise is presence. "Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." You do not have to be strong right now. You do not have to find meaning yet. You simply need to know that you are not walking alone.

Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 4 are often misquoted. He wrote: "We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." He did not say "do not grieve." He said grieve differently — with hope woven into the sadness.

Hope does not eliminate grief. It coexists with it. You can be devastated and still believe that death does not have the final word. Both can be true simultaneously. That is not contradiction. It is faith in its most honest form.

Revelation 21 contains the final promise: "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

God does not intend to explain your pain away. He intends to end it. Every tear is noted. And the day is coming when he personally, tenderly, wipes them all away. That is not a platitude. It is the destination of the entire biblical narrative.

Solomon made a counterintuitive observation in Ecclesiastes 7: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting." Not because sadness is preferable to joy — but because grief strips away pretense and forces honesty about what truly matters.

Loss reorders priorities. It teaches you to hold the people still present more closely. That does not make grief good. It makes it sacred.

If you are in the middle of it: take whatever time you need. There is no schedule for grief. There is no correct method. The God who wept at a graveside is not watching the clock. He is right there with you.